For a country that has historically thrived on innovation, the United States may now be losing out on generations of innovators in science, mathematics, technology, and engineering. These innovators are essential to bridging the skills gap in STEM: an estimated 3 million STEM jobs in America are unfilled because there are not enough qualified workers to fill them.

Among students who do score well in math and science, there are large disparities in innovation by socioeconomic class, race, and gender, according to a study by the Equality of Opportunity Project. Innovators from low-income backgrounds who excelled at math are less likely to hold patents than their counterparts who come from higher-income families but did substantially worse in school. White children are three times more likely to become inventors than black children, and only 18 percent of inventors are female.